ESL activities are a crucial part of any ESL lesson plan. If you are not including activities within your class or tutorage, then you are missing out on one of the strongest tools at your disposal. Contained in this article are some of the best activities and a resource of where to find more.

In the average ESL classroom, there is, or should be, an actual methodology to the way the lessons are taught. It is not the same as it is over in North American classrooms where you are drilled then study then tested. You have to make the learning FUN when you are teaching ESL. How can learning in a classroom be FUN??? Well, come with me and I will show you.

There are 5 things that should happen within each class. They are:

Review
New Vocabulary
New Phrases
Activities
Games

GAMES AND ACTIVITIES?? Yes, they need to be in each session if you are to be successful as an ESL teacher. In order to best demonstrate how to incorporate these correctly, lets write out a lesson plan for an imaginary classroom together. The formula we will be using is:

Review
New Vocabulary
Game
New Phrase(s)
Activity
Activity
Close

So lets imagine that we have a class and they are learning prepositions. This is how to make up a lesson plan for this class.

Materials Needed: Pictures of prepositions, box, ball, blow up bats

Vocabulary: on, in, under, over, infront of, behind, next to

Phrases: "The ball is infront of the box." "The ball is behind the box." etc...

Review Vocabulary and Phrases of the last class.

Introduce: New Vocabulary. Teacher models each word and students repeat. Do this 3 times. (Modelling is saying the word and using hand gestures or actions to show an example of what the word means.)

Game: Slap N Say - Students are divided into teams of 7 if possible. One student from each team stands and is given a blow up bat. When the teacher says one of the prepositions, the students race to the board and hit the correct picture then say the preposition. Then the students race back to their team and the entire team repeats the preposition. First team to finish gets points.

Introduce: Phrases. Teacher gives examples using a box and other props displaying the preposition and saying the new phrase. Students repeat. Do each preposition/phrase 3 times.

Activity: Teams form a circle. Students are all given a blank piece of paper. Teacher then assigns each student in each team one of the prepositions. The students are to draw their preposition. When completed, the teacher tells students to mingle with other team(s) and find your match by showing and saying their preposition. When they have found their match, they sit down together.

Activity: Song - On, In, Under, Over

Students stand and teacher sings and models song with hand actions. Students repeat. All sing and do hand actions slowly. Teacher quickens the tempo each time it is sung and the students try to keep up. Repeat about 5 times quickening the tempo each time. Team able to keep up gets points.

As you can see, writing a workable, fun lesson plan is not rocket science. After you have done it a few times, you will be able to write a GOOD lesson plan within a few minutes. The only prerequisite is that you MUST make the lesson FUN. SBy the lesson plan above, what we can see is that your lesson plan ...

Must be functional but fun for everyone.
Must include activities and games as reinforcement tools.
Should have both new vocabulary and new phrases in the plan.
Should review last sessions lesson.
Should conclude with something fun like a song, awarding prizes for most points, etc...

This format could be changed around any way you want but it is highly recommended that after you have taught something, follow up with a game or activity as a reinforcement tool. Your students will have a lot more fun and will end up retaining more of your lesson.

Wishing you all the success in the world as an ESL teacher. ;)

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